What is the difference between News Websites and News Blogs, especially if both of these web sites have the same or nearly identical content?
Take for instance, a news website such as cnn.com. We know that the content on a site such as cnn.com is generated by numerous staff reporters and arranged by editors. It is a listing of news stories from around the world. These sites may further list their articles by popularity and organized by subject.
Yet, if you were to change the name cnn.com to someonesname.com, the site would likely be perceived to be the product of just one person; even though in actuality, it may be a site created with the help of many other contributors.
The modern idea of what blogging is has become quite confused since the first weblogs emerged in the late nineties.
To understand why the confusion and why these perceptions exist, it is helpful to understand the origin and history of the word Blog. The word Blog is a contraction of the word Weblog which itself is a compound of the words Web referring to the internet and Log meaning a record of data.
In the beginning, a weblog was essentially an online diary where users would write their thoughts, feelings and commentary on various issues. The word was eventually shortened to blog, and soon after that began to be used as a verb meaning the act of updating or posting to a blog. All along the course of this evolution, blogs were perceived as personal outlets and were always associated with one person doing the blogging.
With this in mind it becomes easier to understand why websites with nearly identical content such as someonesname.com and cnn.com are perceived differently in the minds of their readers. If the Someones Name people had chosen to remove the name and personality from their site and chosen a URL that had nothing to do with either a name or personality, then it is likely that the site would be viewed as just a news website even though there would be no difference in content.
It is this association of a blog with a distinct personality that seems to set a mere news website apart from a news blog. One gets a sense that a blogger is editorializing, putting his personal views into it, while a website is simply reporting. You can begin to see how valuable a blog with a person's name as part of the web address can be to personalize your blog for your internet business and increase traffic to your particular product or service.
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